Blowing Bubbles
by Hikari Takaishi
Summary: Oh no! This got erased somehow. So I'm reposting it. Okay, this starts out with a Chibi Ken, (Yes, Chibi...) and he goes outside to blow bubbles like his brother taught him. And now when he is older... Well, r/r please. ~HT


Author's Note: I know that the Digidestined didn't even know each other when they were in kindergarten. (Most likely.) But I had to put this in 'cause I had to get it out of my mind. Please don't flame me about the absurdity of my story. ^_^; 

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Blowing Bubbles

In any ordinary day of the week, a young child made a memory. Or so it was remembered that way. The day was a Thursday, and it wasn't any more special than any other days of the week. Kindergarten was still a learning center for the kids, and the roads outside were still as wild as they were five days ago or seven minutes in the past. Nothing changed… ever. Not until a new memory was born.

"T-each-er!" one particular kid raised his small and round hand. It waved frantically until the teacher knelt down beside the boy with a small grin on her face. 

"Yes, Daisuke?"

One of his little fingers pointed to a certain word on a page. "What's this, Teacher?" he asked.

"Bathroom." She answered simply.

"Can I go there?" 

The teacher stood up and held out her hand. "I'll show you the way." Daisuke's hand grabbed onto her index finger and they left the room, leaving one other adult in supervision.

A girl sat in a chair with crayons scattered all around her. Her sandy-brown hair fell childishly over her eyes and shoulders and she frequently had to swipe her bangs from her face. So gentle and innocent looking she was, her brown eyes showed it too. Despite her dark eyes, she was always happy, but sometimes had a difficult time of showing it. Beside her sat a blond, his face was soft and round and his eyes shone brightly. They kept shining no matter how he felt, if he was sick, the only thing bright would be his eye. If he was happy, his eyes were more radiant than ever. It was as if he had a certain way of keeping all hope inside those eyes. Between the two there was never discussion. Only simple words of "Blue," or "Green," were traded. Other than that, they were silent.

On the opposite side of the wide table, there was a dark-haired boy with foggy blue eyes. He wasn't interested in coloring or reading the simple books; all he wanted to do was blow bubbles. Outside, the sun was shining brightly and everything looked warm. There was a small amount of wind, more like a breeze, and the playground was abandoned. His mind pictured small bubbles flying up from the swing set and floating peacefully into the cerulean skies. There they would build up into what seems like a cloud and soon they would all pop. They would pop like dreams would when one wakes up suddenly. The young boy sighed within his mind as his eyes studied the outside world. How much he loved being outside, how much he remembered when he was free from the walls around him. How many memories apparently sprung out when his foot hit the green grass. It was the outdoors that made the boy happy. And what did his parents do? They sent him to school to learn things he could've learn without the teachers, without the peers, without all the indoor activities. He knew his heart belonged outside…

Daisuke walked back in with a cookie hanging from his mouth. He released the teacher's finger and sat himself down next to the girl with brown hair. Breaking off a piece of the cookie, he held it up to her and asked, "Want some, Kari?" 

"Thank you, Dai'," she said quietly and took the portion of the cookie into her fingers.

He then leaned over and offered the same amount to the blond. When he refused, Daisuke tried to convince him that he should. "Come on," he said, highly pouting, "don'tcha like cookies? It's good, take my word, TA."

The blond set his crayon down and eyed the other boy. "My name's not TA." Warned the child with a pout of his own.

"It's TK or Takeru." Hikari joined in.

"Fine," Daisuke held out his hand with the cookie in it. "Want some, TK?"

"Fine," Takeru reached for the cookie, but it was pulled back from him. "Hey! No fair, you said you'd give me some!"

"You wasted your time." He scrunched his nose and stuck his tongue out.

Takeru's sapphire eyes filled with tears. Soon after he brought his hands to his eyes and started to cry. This triggered Hikari to cry, she didn't like to see others so sad. When the teacher walked over to Daisuke, he too cried because he didn't want to be scolded. Other friends of theirs cried too. Everyone but the two teachers and the dark-haired boy were crying. Seven out of the ten that were in the room were spilling their tears on the gray carpet beneath them. And seven voices shrilled out with fear of getting hurt, scolded, or tricked. The only boy who wasn't sobbing over stupid reasons stood up. While the teachers were calming the children down, he took his time to walk to the door. When he turned the doorknob and opened the large wood door, no one turned to see him leave. 

Decorated with sloppy drawings of people, animals, or nature, the hallways were wide with cluttered walls. His feet made small noises on the linoleum floors as he walked to the large doors that led out to the playground. Pressing the long metal bar on the door, a small gust of air swept itself inside and whirled around his body, making his hair escape its neat and tidy look. As he pushed the door open completely, warm air greeted him and pressed against his face. The young boy's hands reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, closed container. He practically ripped off the lid and reached into his other pocket with his free hand. Soon he was equipped with a straw and dunking it inside of the container. When he brought the straw to his lips, he tilted his head up to the sky and started to blow gently. A bubble started to grow from the end of the cut straw and it soon left it completely.

He watched it as the soap bubble raised into the air and kept going up… and up… and up. Admiring the freedom of the simple sphere, the boy lowered the straw from his face and let his eyes follow it until it was too far to see it anymore. After that, he blew another one. But the teacher rushing outside and grabbing him around his waist interrupted his concentration. The bubble popped before it left the straw. Tears nearly filled his eyes when he saw the container drop onto the ground and the liquid poured out of it leaving a large wet splat on the dry concrete. 

"Ken!" warned Teacher, "I can't believe you left class without permission! I'm afraid you have to sit in the Naughty Corner."

"But," he whispered, "I just wanted to…"

He was cut off when she walked back inside with him in her arms. As the door shut, he shivered. Back inside, he was someplace where he didn't want to be. A small tear-filled sigh came from the boy has his hand released the straw. The final roll of the straw was caught by Ken's eye before the classroom door shut.

--- Present Day ---

Fifty million times Ken wished he wasn't himself. All of his past memories kept tracing back in his dreams, haunting him… warning him. Everything seemed fine, he was back home from his cruel ways in the Digital World and his parents were still crying from the way they thought they had raised their children. Once Ken walked into the hallway from his room and heard his mother sobbing. She was alone in the middle of the night and she was talking to herself. She whispered things of how she wished things were back to normal and how Ken's disappearance made her think the worst of things. Murmurs of how she knew Ken was a 'big boy' now and how he could take care of himself filled the silence. Then the frightening sentence of "I'm just afraid he'll grow up to be just like his brother," echoed in his mind. That was when he walked back into his room.

He walked onto his balcony and stared at the celestial bodies in the endless sky. Each star had their significance in the universe. Some were to shine brightly, others were part of a constellation… everyone had their own reason in the world. Ken felt as if his purpose was to bring others pain and sorrow. A step back inside and he paused. For a brief moment, he was outside, enjoying his life by thinking and releasing his mind. That moment was destroyed when he placed himself inside. Another thought passed by his mind and he walked to his closet. On top of a shelf, there was a box with string tied both tightly and carelessly around it. With ease he removed it from the shelf and removed the string. He removed the lid and stared at what was inside.

Letters, flipped over pictures, and other junk was placed inside. He went through each thing, reading and looking at them carefully. There was a letter he wrote to his brother when he had the flu. It was his brother who said that writing letters to someone would help him feel better. And in more than one way, it did. The brother to brother relationship grew stronger through letters instead of verbal conversations. There were pictures of his brother, in his oldest year of living to his youngest. Inside of that pile of photographs, he found one when he was in kindergarten. Comparing his brothers to his own, Ken realized what his mother meant when she said she was scared of him growing up to be like his brother. His fingers released the pictures and they fell onto the ground. He started to dig some more inside of that box. At the bottom, he found a bag of straws and two closed containers. One was labeled 'Big Brother' and the other was labeled 'Little Brother.' He took the one that belonged to his brother and memories flew into his mind.

"Don't touch that!" his brother would say. Every time Ken touched something that didn't belong to him, he was scolded and usually slapped on his hand. Ken dropped the container back into the box and lifted his own instead. He opened the bag and took a straw. Taking scissors, he carefully cut the straw, just like his brother told him, and bent back the small flaps. He then stood up and walked back out to his balcony. 

Dunking the straw into the liquid, he stirred it slowly as he gazed into the sky. He was standing tall and still, just as his brother had when he attempted to blow bubbles. Ken remembered how his sibling looked at him while he blew his bubbles easily and then struggled to get his own bubble to leave the end of the straw. Wondering if he meant to blow too hard, Ken brought the straw to his lips. His head tilted automatically towards the sky again and he started to let the air create a bubble at the end of the small tube. With naturalness, the bubble escaped the straw and flew into the sky followed by two others. One bubble popped when it was rising higher, but the other two danced in the warm air and rose carefree. 

By dunking the straw again, he blew more bubbles. Neither of them caught up to the first two. As Ken started to blow one more bubble, he saw a distant memory entrapped in the clear walls. He imagined his brother inside of that bubble, with all his memories of him and all his pain he kept inside himself. The soap bubble abandoned the straw and started to float away.

"Wait," Ken whispered loudly and reached for the bubble. "Don't go, Brother." His hand swung for the bubble but it only went higher. "Those are my memories you have," he said to the inanimate thing. Tears appeared in his eyes and his hand gripped the plastic container. "Stop taking my memories away!" he yelled and threw the bottle of liquid at the bubble. On contact the bubble popped instantly and the soap fell out of the container. Ken swallowed the lump in his throat and let the solution fall onto him from above. When he heard the bottle fall onto the ground, he hung his head and his hands dropped to his sides. His mind collapsed and his knees hit the hard surface, tears leaked from his clenched eyes. 

"I won't let those memories just fly away," Ken hit his fist against the ground. Feeling the straw slip out of his grasp, his eyes opened. It rolled to the edge of the balcony and fell through the widespread bars. Ken remembered the fall of his loved ones. "Brother… Wormmon…" he muttered and pulled himself to the bars of the balcony. "I'm not going to let anyone else," promised Ken, "get hurt." The kid finally laid himself on the ground and cried freely. 

(Author's Note: I know Ken has Wormmon back in his cute baby form, but I'm talking about how he had hurt him. Just thought I'd add that. Now continue with the last of the story.)

He stayed outside, because that's where he wanted to be, and thought of memories that he still had. Later on he made more of his brother's bubble solution and refilled the bottle. When he placed it back inside the box and piled everything up inside, he did not retie the box in tight and careless knots. Nor did he put the lid back on. Ken took the images of his loved brother and placed them aside. Putting the box beside his computer desk, Ken sorted out the pictures and eventually put them up on his walls. Above his bed was the picture of his brother at the age he died. Ken was also in the picture. They were smiling brightly and his sibling held him in a brotherly hug. That picture was one of the memories that Ken never dared to forget.

The end.

I hope you enjoyed this story and stuff. It's kind of confusing because I couldn't get my thoughts into words. So tell me if you liked it or if I should keep with the can't-happen-stories or the sharing-feelings-stories. O.o Okay thanks. Please review, though. ~HT


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